Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

sirlynchmob wrote:we live in a world of forced scarcity.

No, real scarcity. There really are a limited number of goods. And a limited number of time.

sirlynchmob wrote:If you have everything you need, house, food, computer, clothes, than why would you need more?

I would want more. I want more than a roof over my head, food to eat, and warm clothes. Which is why I work.

sirlynchmob wrote:but think about how your life could go, you could still work if you choose to.

For no benefit? Nah, not interested.

sirlynchmob wrote:all the people enjoy robotics could collaborate together and design more efficient robots, design the robots to send to mars for them to start building cities there and terraform the planet.

Why would we want to do that? We've got everything we need right here. At least according to your hypothetical.

sirlynchmob wrote:You could design computer games, write books, or anything else you enjoy doing, and put them online for everyone to enjoy.

Why would I do anything for anyone else if it's not going to make me better off?

we live in a world of forced scarcity. If you have everything you need, house, food, computer, clothes, than why would you need more?

You just answered your own question. You don't need a computer. You Want a computer. Paradise lost, so quickly.

rockerbikie wrote:Liberalism does not equal progress. For example, censorship and copyright laws. Those are not progressive ideas, those are backwards and stupid.

But censorship isn't exactly a liberal idea. It's a conservative one.

Melissia wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Liberalism does not equal progress. For example, censorship and copyright laws. Those are not progressive ideas, those are backwards and stupid.

But censorship isn't exactly a liberal idea. It's a conservative one.

Yet we have speech codes in universities...

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Liberalism does not equal progress. For example, censorship and copyright laws. Those are not progressive ideas, those are backwards and stupid.

But censorship isn't exactly a liberal idea. It's a conservative one.

Yet we have speech codes in universities...

Thanks for proving my point.

Universities can be quite conservative in how they act, very resistant to change. Take tenure for example. Liberals have been trying to figure out a way to get rid of tenure for years now, but universities are rather steadfast in keeping it.

HAHAHAHA you just called universities conservative. Berkely is conservative? HAHAHAHA!

@frazzled and biccat, sure my plans for how I think the future of humanity should be focusing its efforts has flaws. but apparently neither of you, nor your elected officials have any plans at all. How sad is that.

computers are impartial and can not be bribed, and moving out to mars gives us more space to live and resources.

Frazzled wrote:HAHAHAHA you just called universities conservative. Berkely is conservative? HAHAHAHA!

Yes, I did.

And I provided proof of my assertion. What about you?

Melissia wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:Liberalism does not equal progress. For example, censorship and copyright laws. Those are not progressive ideas, those are backwards and stupid.

But censorship isn't exactly a liberal idea. It's a conservative one.

Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, an authoritarian practice. Conservative politics are no more inherently likely to be pro-censorship than progressive ones.

English Assassin wrote:Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, an authoritarian practice.

Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian. I'm sure this will cause fraz and bic to spaz out though.

Melissia wrote:

English Assassin wrote:Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, aauthoritarian practice.

Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian. I'm sure this will cause fraz and bic to spaz out though.

America is not the world; the two political trends are not necessarily interrelated.

Melissia wrote:

English Assassin wrote:Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, an authoritarian practice.

Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian. I'm sure this will cause fraz and bic to spaz out though.

Mod: I don't think voicing such assumptions is helpful to the polite continuation of the discussion.

It's also incorrect.

Conservatives have frequently been quite concerned with the protection of rights while liberals tend to develop government organizations that provide to the populace, but may errode some rights to do so.

Jefffar wrote:It's also incorrect.

Conservatives have frequently been quite concerned with the protection of rights while liberals tend to develop government organizations that provide to the populace, but may errode some rights to do so.

They both are concerned with the protection of some rights and both have been known to be in favor of limiting some rights. For example Conservatives (in general) want to limit a womans right to choose and Liberals (in general) want to limit firearms. They both want to control some things and restrict others.

sirlynchmob wrote:@frazzled and biccat, sure my plans for how I think the future of humanity should be focusing its efforts has flaws. but apparently neither of you, nor your elected officials have any plans at all. How sad is that.

computers are impartial and can not be bribed, and moving out to mars gives us more space to live and resources.

1. You're living in this marijuana laced flower power utopia land but can't even see that you yourself couldn't abide there. if you believe it, why do you have a computer? Why do you have clothes? You only need food and should just live in areas where clothing is not needed you greedy imperialist dog!

2. I have plenty of plans. Luckily for you those plans won't be implemented. Haven't seen what your plan is though. But we'll just say, an enlightened Frazzled regime will be an interesting regime!

"Imagine all the people living life in peace." John Lennon
"Now imagine all those people doing what I say or they get shot." The ghost of Joseph Stalin


Automatically Appended Next Post:

English Assassin wrote:

Melissia wrote:

English Assassin wrote:Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, aauthoritarian practice.

Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian. I'm sure this will cause fraz and bic to spaz out though.

America is not the world; the two political trends are not necessarily interrelated.

Nor is her statement a correct one, but I'm not into debating simple concepts like the sky is blue.

sirlynchmob wrote:@frazzled and biccat, sure my plans for how I think the future of humanity should be focusing its efforts has flaws. but apparently neither of you, nor your elected officials have any plans at all. How sad is that.

I thought Romney wants to disenfranchize women. That's a plan, right?

I don't have a plan for how humanity should focus its efforts because I don't presume to know better than anyone else how to run their lives. You call it sad, I call it freedom.

sirlynchmob wrote:computers are impartial and can not be bribed

And where will you get the angels to run the computers?

Melissia wrote:Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian.

Which, in America, is patently false.

Frazzled wrote:I have plenty of plans.

You know we aren't supposed to mention those in public before the unveiling of the Armada.

Ahtman wrote:Conservatives have frequently been quite concerned with the protection of rights

With the exception of gun control, I can't really think of such an issue where the core concern is civil liberties.

Melissia wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Conservatives have frequently been quite concerned with the protection of rights

With the exception of gun control, I can't really think of such an issue where the core concern is civil liberties.

Pretty sure I didn't say that.

Ahtman wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I have plenty of plans.

You know we aren't supposed to mention those in public before the unveiling of the Armada.

True Dat. Unfortunately my wife also has a plan. Its called the "once your life insurance is worth more than you are old man its curtains for you" plan.

Frazzled wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Frazzled wrote:I have plenty of plans.

You know we aren't supposed to mention those in public before the unveiling of the Armada.

True Dat. Unfortunately my wife also has a plan. Its called the "once your life insurance is worth more than you are old man its curtains for you" plan.

So...dont let her drive or the jig is up.

LoneLictor wrote:Yesterday my somewhat crazy brother went on a rant about how history has a very liberal trend. He traced back from like the fething dark ages, talking about how things steadily get more and more liberal. He talked about how the more advanced a society is, the more welfare there is and that sort of thing. Even though I mostly agree with him (mostly, some of the stuff he said was still crazy and stupid) I kinda stopped listening at that point. Then he started going through American History, and how far we've gone from the US's quite libertarian-ish beginnings to the society we have now.

So, I figured this might as well start an intellectual conversation or at least an entertaining flame war. Does history have a liberal trend? If so, will it continue? And where will it stop?

Discuss.

whatever narcotic your brother is enjoying, pass me some of that!

The only way your brother's argument makes any sort of remote sense is if you account for a variable definition of liberty that accounts for what liberty meant at the time. I mean, sure, if we take Frazzled's comment about liberty at face value, then by and large, stalinist russia was liberal. You could pick and choose your reason for being noticed and sent to the gulag, you could decide whether you are having old Borscht or stale bread for lunch, you could decide whether you joined the army voluntarily or were conscripted.... In a very strict sense, these are still choices. The fact is, by our standards of liberty, no. The vast majority of history shows absolutely no such liberty as your brother argues. Australia and the americas were settled by criminals. Not because they decided to do so, but because britain gave some of them an option to rot in a cell or eke out their own living in the middle of no-where, or simply gave some of them no options and forced them out... Medieval europe was not in the least bit liberal. There was a very clear and structured heirarchy in which it was simply not possible to move out of. Either vertically or horizontally (meaning, moving to be the serf of another lord was at best difficult). Even in a tribal setting, needs must that your choices conform to the social structure. Take for instance cliques, clubs and schools....

Another problem to consider is what is or is not a human being, or a citizen. up until the 18th century, I'd say the status of humanity and citizenship was really good. Enter 19th century. Holocaust, Gulag, African genocide, South american genocide (tribes ARE getting killed out because they cause complications for drug cartels or oil companies). I'm not saying these problems did not exist before the 19th century, but before this point, the reason was always that the offending group was "other". In the 19th century, the application of rationalization made the other groups no longer "other" but "subhuman", which I think is much worse. Now, we have the same thing again where the middle east and the west are at eachothers throats over something ridiculously petty, and your religion decides whether you live or die. The families my mother works with from Iran are "devout Islamists", though, they're really only islamic in the loosest sense of the term because they must be. Their strain of islam is actually a hybridization of their original faith with islam woven into its fabric...

It's all in the eye of the beholder. I stress you could look through history and find nothing but dictatorial patterns of rulership if thats what you were looking for. If you want to find a masonic lodge of 33 running history, then go out looking for the evidence, and you will find it. Insist that we live in an anarchical system and have been doing so since the dawn of time, well... you will find that too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:

Ahtman wrote:Conservatives have frequently been quite concerned with the protection of rights

With the exception of gun control, I can't really think of such an issue where the core concern is civil liberties.

marriage and gay rights, etc.

English Assassin wrote:

Melissia wrote:

English Assassin wrote:Strictly-speaking, censorship is, by its nature, aauthoritarian practice.

Which, in America, is generally equal to conservative, which is most associated with stepping on civil rights, especially of minorities-- IE authoritarian. I'm sure this will cause fraz and bic to spaz out though.

America is not the world; the two political trends are not necessarily interrelated.

Nor is her statement a correct one, but I'm not into debating simple concepts like the sky is blue.

@English Assassin

It wouldn't have to, to get the whole things started it would take a world wide effort. We can build a utopian society, and we can do it peacefully.

to keep society as it is and never progress anymore is going to lead to more and bloodier wars, especially when the gas runs out.

but who wants to stay stagnant when we can achieve so much more?

sirlynchmob wrote:@English Assassin

It wouldn't have to, to get the whole things started it would take a world wide effort. We can build a utopian society, and we can do it peacefully.

to keep society as it is and never progress anymore is going to lead to more and bloodier wars, especially when the gas runs out.

but who wants to stay stagnant when we can achieve so much more?

While I do find these sentiments refreshing, and certainly would love to see something like that come about, I find it highly, unrealistically idealistic. Put simply, there are many, many factions on this world who LOVE things as they are, and would fight heavily to avoid being absorbed in the manner that you spoke of. The USA certainly being one of them. While the product might be lovely, I just personally can't see it ever taking off.

sirlynchmob wrote:but who wants to stay stagnant when we can achieve so much more?

Progress is being been continually made in almost all fields and we haven't needed a one world government to do it either.

Universities are by structure prone to a mild moral and social conservatism, of course depending on which Faculty you go to. Economy is almost always conservative, Humanities is almost always 'liberal'. It also depends on the country, so blanket statements needs to be handled with care (as always). I should also say that 'conservative' doesn't always mean 'american social conservatism', but mostly that their teachings support individual values that are close or identical to some of 'american social conservatism'.

Now to OP's question ; As said before, 'liberal' is a blanket statement in this case. Political liberalism is defined by Lord Crick as the doctrine which promote absolute value to the right of freedom. It can be refined in neoliberalism where most social freedoms are secondary to economical freedom. It can be further refined as to forego the normal humanist background of modernity and accord legal personnality to fictitious creations like company. The more we refine, the further we go from the original meaning of liberalism, which was to promote individual freedom. Still, in this sense, since individual freedoms where almost never mentionned in ancient laws, at least never in the sense of promoting them on a humanist background, and that they are more and more common now, then yes, there is such a trend, even if it's a blurry one.

Personnally, I'd say that you would be much more correct by saying that there is a humanist trend to history, and that it permeate in most of the political spectrum, except for it's extremities.

The only way your brother's argument makes any sort of remote sense is if you account for a variable definition of liberty that accounts for what liberty meant at the time. I mean, sure, if we take Frazzled's comment about liberty at face value, then by and large, stalinist russia was liberal.

That is not liberalism. Individual freedom isn't supported by freedom of licence, but by freedom of act. Stalinist Russia wasn't liberal under any correct acceptation of the term. Having a freedom of choice isn't liberal freedom. Your entire post is sophistry.

Another problem to consider is what is or is not a human being, or a citizen. up until the 18th century, I'd say the status of humanity and citizenship was really good.

No clue where you get this from.

marriage and gay rights, etc.

By your account KKK are social right protectors because they had an opinion on the social right movement.

Liberalism does not equal progress. For example, censorship and copyright laws. Those are not progressive ideas, those are backwards and stupid.

Censorship is millenium old. Not exactly a liberal idea. Nor is it a conservativ one by essence.

Kovnik Obama wrote:

marriage and gay rights, etc.

By your account KKK are social right protectors because they had an opinion on the social right movement.

uh, no. Go back and re read what's posted there, and read the context into it. I don't know where you got that interpretation from.

Also, your response regarding my comment about stalisnt russia proves my point. By changing the scope of definition of what Liberty entails, you change the perception of whether an era or setting granted any freedoms. In a hundred years from now the definition will have changed again, and there will be arguments about whether or not we today were liberal enough, too liberal, etc.

Consider that you do not vote for kings, and yet, kings can still leave a fair degree of liberty for the public in what religion they pursue, where they live, or whatever else. Depending on your mores, a monarchical system could still be construed as non-liberal by virtue of the fact that it's not a democratic system.

AustonT wrote:

Joey wrote:
And what was the basis for the German state?

Otto von Bismark.

Joey wrote:
Who gave the Jews a taste of freedom?

The Muslims.
Also The French National Essembly and especially Adrien Duport, in 1791.

I thought it was the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It did offer British support for a Jewish homeland in the middle east, after all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:@English Assassin

It wouldn't have to, to get the whole things started it would take a world wide effort. We can build a utopian society, and we can do it peacefully.

to keep society as it is and never progress anymore is going to lead to more and bloodier wars, especially when the gas runs out.

but who wants to stay stagnant when we can achieve so much more?

I bolded the silly part.
Utopias are impossible. Do you know what Utopia means, if you were to break it down into its etymological roots? It means nowhere.
It is impossible to have a perfect society, bereft of strife, and possessing access to limitless supplies. Especially one that was formed peacefully.

And even if it did exist, there will most likely be something horribly wrong with it (See: Brave New World)

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

AustonT wrote:

Joey wrote:
And what was the basis for the German state?

Otto von Bismark.

Joey wrote:
Who gave the Jews a taste of freedom?

The Muslims.
Also The French National Essembly and especially Adrien Duport, in 1791.

I thought it was the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It did offer British support for a Jewish homeland in the middle east, after all.

The first country to emancipate the Jews in Europe was the French Republic just before the Reign of Terror.
The Balfour Declaration was simply a public declaration of the British government's support for the establishment of a Jewish National Home which would eventually be passed in the League of Nations.
Joey has a somewhat "loose" grasp on history which must be taken with a grain of salt...this one.